


running for home

by merionettes (acchikocchi)



Series: gimme shelter [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Golden Deer Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), fantasy travelogues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26275840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acchikocchi/pseuds/merionettes
Summary: It still hit him at the most unexpected times. Having Sylvain around didn't mean Felix stopped missing his dog. Sometimes at the end of a long day he ached for the silent, uncomplicated comfort of a warm body at his feet, of his face pressed against his dog's coat.Sylvain, though.* * *Sylvain relearns how to be human. Felix relearns how to be whole.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: gimme shelter [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1908619
Comments: 28
Kudos: 182





	running for home

Felix started awake, heart pounding, hand reaching for the knife under his pillow. For a moment he didn't know where he was. It was dark. The air was close. He was inside.

"Sorry," a voice said, hushed, "it's okay, it's just me. Sorry."

The sound was coming from the floor beside his bed. It was Sylvain.

Slowly, it came back to him. Their third day traveling together, moving slowly because Felix's side was still sore. After two nights of camping out, waking up each morning with a renewed ache, reaching a village: the sort of place Felix would have gone out of his way to avoid before. There was an inn, or at least a spare room above the tavern. They took it. 

Felix sat up. Grey light filtered through the shutters, enough to make out Sylvain wrapped in a tangle of coarse sheets and blankets, lying on the floorboards. The second bed, a few feet away, had been stripped bare.

Felix's voice came out sleep-hoarse. "I'm not that fragile."

They'd taken turns keeping watch at camp, just in case the small-time councilor decided to make more trouble. But whether he'd been satisfied sending a message, or whether he'd realized he'd bitten off more than he could chew, there'd been no sign of trouble. 

Slowly, Sylvain sat up, too. Something cracked; he winced, and massaged a point halfway up his spine. "Don't remember having this problem," he said. 

Felix repeated, "I don't need you to guard me."

"I, uh." Sylvain ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. The chuckle was dry. "I needed to be. Closer."

Felix got it then. He didn't know what to say. 

Sylvain pushed the tangle of bedding aside and got to his feet. He stretched, arms over his head, twisting at the waist. Finally, he looked at Felix, a quick glance down, a half-smile.

"Rise and shine," Sylvain said. "It's another beautiful day."

* * *

The tavern keeper was not inclined to friendliness. Fine, Felix didn't need to make friends. "We want to buy provisions," he said, straight and to the point.

"Nothing to spare," she shot back at him.

"Hey, no problem," Sylvain interjected, subtly elbowing Felix in the side. It made Felix start, hand moving toward his knife—reflex—before he forced himself to still. "Can't blame you, that roast last night was so good you must have a real crowd in here for the lunch hour, yeah?"

"We keep busy," she allowed. 

Sylvain kept up the patter, a smile on his face. Felix hadn't seen anyone smile that much since leaving the monastery. He smiled and she melted and unbent and finally said, "Suppose it can't hurt," before giving them yesterday's bread and some fresh cheese, for pennies. 

"What's your friend's problem?" Felix heard her say to Sylvain as he was already on the way out the door.

"Don't mind him," Sylvain said. "He's just not a morning person."

"I like mornings," Felix said, disgruntled, when they were back on the road.

"I know," said Sylvain.

* * *

The simple truth was he wasn't used to it. Being around someone else—someone human. He couldn't let his guard down, not with someone there, every time he made a fire or stopped for water or simply turned around.

"How are you feeling?" Sylvain asked, at intervals, which made his teeth clench at first, until he remembered the injury.

"Fine," he said, and, "I said fine," and, " _Sylvain_ —" 

Sylvain held up his hands. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry. I'm just—we should get it looked at, you know? By a proper healer."

Felix knew his own body by now, and he knew when he was all right and when he was pushing it. He had to, if he was going to survive. He thought Sylvain had been too modest, when he'd said his healing spell was rusty. Still.

"If there's one around," he said, close to agreement.

They walked in silence. After a while, Sylvain asked, "Ever thought about getting a horse?" 

"No," Felix said. Too many reasons. First he hadn't wanted the bother. The burden of another living creature on his hands. Then the dog's pace matched a human better than a horse. Now—the thought was too raw. Besides, he was used to walking. It satisfied him, deep inside, to get from one place to another with nothing but his own two legs.

Sylvain didn't push it. "Okay," he said easily, like he accepted most things.

After a minute, Felix said, "You can't be tired already."

"Huh? Oh, no. I just like riding. Grew up with horses."

Of course; Sylvain was a Gautier. It was still a strange thought to keep in his mind, an odd shape poking out at unexpected times. They'd grown up less than twenty leagues from each other.

Felix couldn't remember if the dog had liked horses. He'd liked everyone, mostly.

"So how long til we hit—" Sylvain waved a hand at the scrubby outlands stretching before them, thistles and juniper bushes and red earth as far as the eye could see. "Not this?"

Felix shrugged. He'd looked at a map some way back, after crossing the border with Almyra. It hadn't really mattered to him. He kept moving forward. That was all.

"Until whenever it stops," he said. He pointed. "If you want a city, Morfis is that way."

"Me? No way. Think I've had enough magic up close and personal for a while."

Felix didn't say anything. What was there to say.

After a minute, he said, "I'm going to the coast. Then..." He shrugged. "I'll catch a ship. You can come if you want."

"Right," Sylvain said. "I remember. Sounds good to me."

They passed another group on the road, a gaggle of girls in their early teens. The girls looked at them, then at each other, then giggled. Sylvain smiled at them, as he'd smiled the day before at the old goatherder and the two little girls holding hands with their father and the farmer with a sickle strapped to her back. He'd moved to Felix's other side, between him and the girls. 

The first time, Felix had thought it was an accident. The second, coincidence. By the third, Felix understood what was happening.

He fought down the urge to snarl. "Sylvain," he said, tightly, after the girls had passed.

Sylvain's head came up; he searched Felix's face, frowning. "What? You okay?"

"You're getting in my way."

"Huh?"

"When you—" He gestured at the road. "Stop it."

Sylvain glanced at the road, then at Felix, and then he realized. 

"Oh," he said. He reached up to knead the back of his own neck, then dropped his hand. "My bad."

They camped again for the night, the last village three hours behind them. They still had to kit out Sylvain. He'd come back to himself fully dressed, boots and all—when Felix asked if they were the clothes he'd gone missing in, he'd looked down at himself and shrugged and said, "I don't know, it's been awhile"—but he didn't have a weapon or a waterskin or a bedroll. It was warm enough that Felix divided his bedroll into two, spreading the blanket out over a thin bed of juniper needles and dry leaves. Sylvain took it before Felix could toss a coin. "I've had worse," he said.

Felix didn't know if he was talking about the dog or the past. He didn't ask. He lay awake, watching the stars move overhead, aware at every moment of the even breathing at his side.

* * *

They hit a proper town two days later. First, kit for Sylvain: bedroll, pack, waterskin, cloak, gloves, spare shirt, and a sword good enough to pass Felix's close-eyed inspection. Next, a healer for Felix.

The healer inspected the site of the wound, now a fresh pink scar, prodding little flashes of white light dancing over Felix's skin and vanishing. It reminded him of older days. She pronounced it well on the way to healing and gave him a packet of herbs for the stiffness, with instructions to boil them in water each morning. Felix dug a few coins from the pouch at his hip. It had been full just a few days ago. Those bandits and the river. It seemed like an age. 

They slept in a real inn that night. When Felix woke the next morning, Sylvain's bed was empty. He found him in the chicken yard, sword in hand, working through a drill. Sylvain moved slow, but sure. Whatever skill he'd had before—Before—hadn't totally left him. He'd be able to manage the basics of defending himself, at least.

Sylvain dropped out of his stance when he noticed Felix, straightening up. Felix nodded at the sword. "No problems?"

Sylvain lifted the sword, turning it this way and that, holding it out _en garde_. "I'm—I was more of a lance guy. But this'll do."

Felix frowned. "We could have gotten you a spear."

"It's fine. This works." Sylvain sheathed the sword, putting a period on it.

Too late to trade or go back. Well, it was on Sylvain's head. Felix wasn't buying him another one. It was funny how quickly the money went when there were two of them. 

Particularly when one was over six feet tall. Sylvain ate like a horse. "Sorry," he said, half-apologetic but still ravenous, as he tore into his third quail in a row at camp that night. "Think it might be a weird magic aftereffect thing, like, gotta make up for the size difference. I don't know." The last words were muffled by a mouthful of quail.

 _At least you used to be able hunt for yourself_ , Felix almost said. He was trying to cut down on those, the offhand comments that made Sylvain flinch. It wasn't entirely fair, anyways. Sylvain wasn't a bad hunter—no worse than Felix himself with a bow, and he knew how to make a basic trap. It was just that neither of them compared to a dog.

Instead he said, "I'm going to have to find a job soon."

"We," said Sylvain.

Felix didn't get it for a minute. Then he said, "No."

"Come on, you don't expect me to tag along without pulling my own weight, do you? Besides, you already paid for my gear."

Felix hunched over to poke at the fire. "It was a fair trade."

"What, like I—" Sylvain broke off. When he spoke again, his voice was the kind of light that overlaid razor-fine tension. "And you got me first, more than once, so let's call that one a wash. Back on topic. I've gotta do _something_ to pay the way, right?"

He did have a point; Felix didn't actually intend to feed two mouths as they crossed the entire length of Morfis. He hadn't really thought about the specifics, though. He didn't work with others. That was the whole point.

"Seriously." Sylvain's face was earnest. Coaxing. "Give me a chance. A trial run. Promise I won't get in your way."

Felix didn't like the idea of agreeing. He didn't like the idea that he was giving in to someone else's inducements.

"We'll see," he said.

As it happened, Sylvain was the one to put coin in their pocket first. They were still hugging the northeastern road but the landscape was drying up around them, shrubs small and sparse, the rich red of the earth fading into a sickly burnt orange. The pines were gone entirely. In their place sprung up small stubby bushes studded with needles like knifepoints. The rolling undulation of the land was flattening out, too, the horizon broader every morning. It made Felix's neck prickle. He caught himself wondering why he'd come this way in the first place, why he hadn't just gone west in Almyra, toward the hazy snow-capped mountains. Who knew what might have happened if he had.

The towns and villages were coming fewer and farther apart, as well. They stopped at a hamlet for the afternoon meal. Not the sort of place they'd find work. Herders and farmers—Felix wondered what they managed to grow—bearing no harsher signs of skirmish than cuts from the harvest sickle. Not even a proper inn or tavern, just a big earth-plastered house with a room in the front for custom and the household in the back.

"Need a place to rest your head?" the woman who served them a stew of goat and grains asked, friendly enough. 

Not until the pouch was full again. Felix started to say no, when he felt Sylvain's foot against his, pressing down on his toes. He stopped, as much in surprise as in compliance.

"Do you happen to have a healer around here?" Sylvain asked, putting on that charming outward-facing smile.

Felix's foot twitched. He tamped down on the irritation rising in his gorge. It had been just a few days.

The woman pursed her lips. "Not as such. No. That'll be a full two days' walk."

"Well," Sylvain said, still smiling. "As it happens, I can manage a little white magic myself. Not much, nothing to brag about, but if you know anyone around here with a nasty cut or the like, maybe they'd like to get it looked at...?"

Her face stilled. "Really." Half-suspicious, half-hopeful.

Sylvain held up his hands. "Not here to turn a profit off someone else's back. Just an offer."

She regarded him for a long moment. Then she rolled up one coarse linen sleeve and thrust her arm forward. A burn stood out red and angry on the freckled, sun-darkened skin.

Sylvain held his hand above the burn. His brow furrowed. Felix watched his face, fascinated. The muscles of his jaw clenched; the freckles stood out. 

A faint white glow flickered into being between his hand and the burn. It flickered, flared in a burst of intensity, and faded away. Where the skin had been red, it was now shiny with scar tissue.

The woman raised her eyebrows. "Well," she said. "Can't see as there's much to complain about."

"Thank you," Sylvain said, demure. Felix thought he saw the corner of his mouth twitch.

She considered them. "Not a lot of spare coin in town this time of year. But folks need fixing up. I say it's worth bed and board for two grown men. That sound fair to you?"

Sylvain held out his hand. The woman shook it. "Deal."

"I'll tell folks, then." She got up from the table and went out the front door with no further ado.

Once he was sure she was out of earshot, Felix said, "How did you know?" Because Sylvain had known. He was sure of it.

Sylvain leaned back, crossing his arms behind his head. "You saw those guys when we came in, right? All cut up from the harvest. Not worth walking two days, but not the kind of thing you'd leave alone, if you had the choice."

He should have thought of that himself. "Good job," he said. It came out grudging.

Sylvain grinned. "Don't hurt yourself," he teased. "This won't get us far, anyway, I can't do much more than cuts and bruises. But it's not a bad fallback."

That wasn't true. He'd sewn up Felix's entire side. But Felix wasn't going to point that out. He'd never bothered with magic. It had been a long time since he'd even thought about it. But he remembered: it never hurt to have a little white magic around.

The woman came back with a disgruntled old man and a grubby and equally disgruntled child in tow. She talked as Sylvain healed the man's broken toe and the child's cut knee. The village did not have a healer, it transpired, because he had married the butcher in the village two days' walk over. And a fine thanks it was for the years they'd spent putting up with his finicky habits.

While she'd talked and Sylvain had worked, a middle-aged woman with a rusty cloth wrapped around her hand had appeared in the doorway. Then another man. Then another. Soon there was a line stretching out the door. Sylvain looked a little disconcerted. But he smiled gamely at the next person waiting and rolled his shirtsleeves up over his forearms. "Show me what you've got," he said.

Felix couldn't sit there any longer. He went back to the room the woman had prepared for them—her own spare room, probably—where he spent a silent hour cleaning his weapons, and Sylvain's for good measure, rearranging his pack. It was the most solitude he'd had since the dog had left. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

It might have been an hour, or two, or three, before Sylvain stumbled into the room. Without a word to Felix he flopped face-first on the bed, like felled timber, all six feet of him in an ungainly sprawl. His boots dangled over the foot.

Felix dug in his pack. There was still some dried fruit at the bottom. He tossed the packet at Sylvain. "Eat this."

"No thanks," Sylvain said into the pillow. "Too tired."

Felix exhaled through his nose. He got up and stood over Sylvain's bed. "Eat," he repeated.

Sylvain rolled his head to the side. One brown eye peered up at Felix, from under a tangle of limp red hair.

Felix shoved the packet of fruit in his face. "You're drained from using magic all afternoon. You have to eat. Sugar's good for it."

With a grunt of effort, Sylvain rolled on his side and propped his head up on one hand. "You know a lot about it."

"I know the same as anyone who's fought with a white mage," Felix said.

Sylvain raised an eyebrow. Felix didn't say anything else, and Sylvain didn't push. Instead he pushed himself upright. "Yeah, all right. Hand it over."

After the first few bites, Sylvain sat up a little straighter. By the time the packet was empty, he was himself again, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. "I told you so," Felix said, because he had.

"Yeah, okay," Sylvain said, grinning. "You know it all."

"Don't forget it," Felix said. "How did it go?"

"Good. Nothing I couldn't handle. A couple sprains, some bad cuts. Easy stuff. _And_ —" he said it with a flourish, like he was presenting Felix with a special treat, or maybe a dead rabbit, "—I got us a job."

"Us."

"Yep. Two strapping young men such as ourselves—" Sylvain waggled his eyebrows; Felix rolled his eyes, "—for a little light guard detail." He dropped the ridiculous face and said, "It's a wedding procession. Three days' travel. They're worried about the gifts. Apparently the bride can take care of herself."

Felix snorted. That was what they all thought. But if he wasn't expected to look after a civilian who wouldn't stay still and would insist on moving in the wrong direction at the wrong time, so much the better. Then he could cover Sylvain if it turned out Felix had overestimated him.

"Fine," he said. "We'll do it."

They met up with the caravan the next morning. The bride's wagon was festooned with wedding finery, ribbons everywhere in blue and red, copper bells jingling in the breeze. The bride herself beamed under layers of embroidered skirts and an elaborate flowered headdress. It looked unbearable in the heat.

Sylvain introduced them and added, with a wink, "And may I say you look lovely today." She giggled.

The wagons rolled through the dirt. Felix and Sylvain walked alongside with the bride's friends and cousins. Every so often the wedding party broke into song, joyous and horrifically off-key. Each time Felix regretted taking the job a little more. Sylvain hummed along under his breath.

The first day passed without incident. So did the second. The wedding party toasted each other with brimming flasks, some kind of spirit that tasted like drinking a thoron spell. Felix went to sleep with his teeth grinding. 

It happened on the third day. They were supposed to reach the groom's village mid-afternoon. The singing was constant, by now, accompanied by bursts of impromptu dancing. At one point someone tried to grab Felix's hand. He shook them off with so much force that Sylvain moved, lightning-quick, for the offender, then caught Felix's eye and stopped.

When the cousin, or whoever, had backed off, all cheerful apology, Felix said through gritted teeth, "This can't be over soon enough."

Sylvain might have said something. Felix never knew, as the singing was interrupted by a shriek.

One minute the hills were empty, the next they weren't. There was no cover to speak of, so they must have had a mage with them. Felix dismissed the problem and sized them up at a glance. About a dozen, maybe more, with gear showing hard use. Career raiders, you might say. They probably had a finely calibrated understanding of the precise ratio of violence to reward. On an ordinary raid, with ordinary people. That was unfortunate for them.

"Get back," Felix barked to the wedding party. Men and women alike were bunching up together, reaching for their eating knives or hunting slings. Up on the wagon, the bride was gripping a ribbon-wrapped sickle—a symbol of riches and good fortune, gleaming with a very non-symbolic edge—and snarling bloody murder. There would be too many of them for her, though. They couldn't be allowed to get that close.

"Well," Sylvain said, "at least we'll earn our keep."

"You take those three," Felix said, indicating a trio narrowing in on the bride's father, the biggest and best-armed, meaning he had both a hunting bow and a skinning knife. "I'll get the rest."

Sylvain didn't say anything stupid about whether Felix was sure he could handle it, which was refreshing. He just said, "Got it."

Felix unsheathed his sword and walked forward, calmly, until the closest raider, looking disconcerted at his approach, bared his teeth and rushed him, and Felix dodged the lunge, swung his sword up and sliced the man's arm off. Then it started in earnest.

They tried to pincer him. It didn't work. The group was tough and relatively clever; after that first idiotic rush, they kept him engaged on their terms, splitting his attention and trying to pull him out of position. Still, as long as he didn't make any stupid mistakes he'd be fine. He'd picked out the mage right away. She was too far back for him to get at easily, but she hadn't started flinging any fireballs in his face, so maybe her line was more sabotage than combat. Had Sylvain noticed? He'd have to hope so.

He was irritated to find he was struggling. It was hard to fight when the tug of awareness was there, distracting him. Someone else is there: how are they doing. Are they holding their line. Do I need to watch my back. This was why he didn't work with other people. 

When the next raider went down, Felix gave in and glanced over, just a quick look. Just to check. Just in time to see the bandit swing, Sylvain block, and Sylvain's sword shear off at the hilt. Sylvain gaped at it for just a moment. Then he tossed it aside and punched the bandit in the face. The man's head snapped back. He crumpled to the ground.

That shouldn't have happened. Felix had checked that weapon himself. Fucking mages—the bandit in front of him was fighting with a short spear. Felix slammed the pommel of his sword against the side of her head and yanked the spear from her hands.

"Sylvain," he said—shouted—over the din.

Sylvain caught the spear just under the point. Without so much as a pause to adjust his grip, to measure the heft and weight of the weapon, he swept it around and smashed the wooden shaft into the next man's gut. The man doubled over, choking, and Sylvain flipped the spear one-handed and drove the point straight through his eye.

The whisper of steel sweeping by his ribs made Felix jerk his head away from where he'd been staring. Some raider was right up in his face. He cursed and cleaved through her side. Then he turned his back on Sylvain.

But he knew Sylvain was there. He knew when Sylvain had finished with the trio and vaulted over to take Felix's right side. There was something about it. The savage certainty of the follow-through, the blow landing after yours. The eyes at your back.

It had been a long time since Felix had fought with anyone else beside him. It had been longer since he'd felt like this about it. 

It took maybe five minutes and half a dozen bodies for the raiding party to break and scatter, making tracks for the hills. Felix watched, sword unsheathed, until they disappeared from sight. Sylvain propped the butt of the spear in the dirt and cracked his neck, chest rising and falling. 

"More of a lance guy," Felix said.

Sylvain grinned—no, that was a smirk. Unrepentant. "Hey. I did tell you."

Felix crossed his arms. "When it was too late to do any good. Fine. Keep that thing."

"So?" Sylvain pressed, still grinning. "Did I pass? Meet the standards of the great Felix Fraldarius?"

"You were all right."

Sylvain whistled. That grin made him look like a lunatic. "Hear that?" he said to no one in particular. "I'm all right."

"Don't push it," Felix said. 

Sylvain threw an arm over his shoulders. It landed heavily. Felix went rigid all over; then, consciously, made the muscles of his shoulders unwind, drop. Sylvain must have felt it. But he didn't move the arm. He said, "I think this is going to be a beautiful partnership."

* * *

The wedding party paid them a handsome purse and insisted they stay for the feast. Sylvain looked on the verge of accepting; then he looked at Felix, and tactfully made their excuses. The bride kissed Sylvain on the cheek and they walked away in the hot afternoon. 

Sylvain hummed the wedding song as they went. He wasn't off-key.

* * *

Slowly, they crept across the outlands. Towns were few and far between, but where they did exist there was almost always work to do. This was Morfis; magical creatures—experiments gone wrong or things that appeared out of the desert—abounded. There were the regular kind, too. Desert cats who got the taste of human and slunk outside villages, jackals who hassled the flocks. In this way they kept their pouches and bellies full, crawling toward the coast.

It still hit him at the most unexpected times. Having Sylvain around didn't mean Felix stopped missing his dog. Sometimes at the end of a long day he ached for the silent, uncomplicated comfort of a warm body at his feet, of his face pressed against his dog's coat.

Sylvain, though. Sylvain whose sharp eyes never missed a thing, who knew what he meant without speaking. Sylvain who could be counted upon to deliver the killing blow.

Meanwhile, he learned things. Sylvain was a charmer, a smooth talker. Sylvain had a faultless memory. Sylvain couldn't bear to leave a table untidied. Every idiosyncracy was a coin to be hoarded away. One more weight balancing the scale.

"How much do you remember?" he asked one night, when it was too warm for a fire.

Sylvain looked up from where he was trying to mend a rent in his shirt. "All of it, after we met. Didn't I say?"

"Not of—from before. When you were in Faerghus. Fódlan." He slipped more often now. Sylvain never called him on it. Possibly he didn't notice.

He'd given Sylvain the concise version, that first night. Imperial invasion, Kingdom collapse, five year stalemate, his own defection—he wouldn't shy away from it—fall of Fhirdiad, march on Enbarr, Ruler of Dawn, King of Unification. Royal wedding by now, probably. Sylvain had had a thousand questions: who was governing the old Kingdom territories? Where, and how? If the united capital was in Derdriu what happened to Fhirdiad? A treaty with Almyra—then what about Sreng? Most Felix hadn't been able to answer. Others he hadn't wanted to. He hadn't talked about Duscur, or Gronder Field. 

Sylvain was slow to answer.

"I remember it all. As much as anyone would. But it's like it happened... a long time ago." He laughed, or something like it. "I mean, I guess it did. It was." He dragged a palm over the back of his neck. Felix was starting to understand it was an uneasy habit. "Why?"

Felix shrugged. He didn't know why. He couldn't seem to picture Sylvain in Faerghus. Plated in armor, riding under the king's banner.

It got hotter and hotter. Felix gave in and stripped off his leather chest piece, even though it weighed down his pack. Sylvain drooped in the heat, perpetual trickles of sweat crawling down his neck. 

It had been two days since their last night in town. At first Felix thought he was imagining the haze in the distance, at the foot of a low rise. Then Sylvain said, "Are those trees?"

The water was clouded and sandy but it was undeniably a spring. Stunted, grey-green shrubs clustered around the pool. A creek snaked away from it, dying quickly to a weak trickle.

"So," Sylvain said, like he wasn't staring at the pool with all the longing of a dying man. "What do you think?"

By way of answer, Felix pulled his shirt over head. That was the cue. Clothes went flying. Sylvain's belt smacked him in the side. Sylvain beat him to the pool, sliding in with a noise that could have been pain or ecstasy. Felix followed just behind.

The water wasn't even that cold. It felt like an ice bath. Felix pulled the tie from his hair and ducked his entire head under the surface. 

He surfaced blind, hair plastered to his face, and then submerged himself to his nose, letting it float free in the water. Sylvain tried to imitate him. He was too tall; he couldn't sink deeper than halfway up his chest. In revenge he swung his feet up and propped them on Felix's knees. Felix shoved them off with a splash. Sylvain flicked water in his face. Felix lunged, before Sylvain held up his hands calling, "Truce! I mean, surrender!"

The water was feeling warm already. Probably the splashing hadn't helped. Felix let it go and floated. His hair was already drying; he knew it would come out wild and feathery. The sun beat down on his shoulders. His mind drifted.

"Felix," a voice came from far away. "Hey, Felix. You're going to get burned."

"Mm," he said, distant. Silence. Felix opened his eyes.

Sylvain was looking at him like—"What," Felix said.

"Nothing," Sylvain said. "Just feeling nostalgic."

Felix looked away. He felt the blood rising in his cheeks, for no reason. He heaved himself upright, water streaming from every limb, and climbed out. Sylvain followed suit.

The sunburn wasn't too bad.

* * *

Outside a crossroads town, walled away by earthen plaster, they took down a nest of venomous lizards the size of dogs, Sylvain with the long reach, Felix with the quick follow. This was no farming village; they were showered with both coin and praise. "Share in our feast tonight," enthused their employer, the head of the tanners' guild. "We've butchered an ox."

It was a clear night—they were all clear nights out here. Stars massed overhead; lanterns lit the town square. Sylvain watched the dancers in the square, lantern light rippling over his face, bringing out the copper in his hair.

"What do you say," he said. "Want to go have a look?"

Felix shook his head. "No," he said, then thought to add, "You can go."

Sylvain looked at him like he was crazy. "I'm not going to leave you here." 

He must have realized how it sounded, because his expression flickered, but he didn't walk it back and it still got under Felix's skin, buzzing and irritated.

"I don't need looking after," he said.

Sylvain shook his head, leaned back. "That's not what I meant. I just don't feel like heading out there by myself."

Right. Felix said, "You know you're not actually—"

He caught it, too late. "I'm not what," Sylvain said, after a minute.

Felix shook his head.

"No," Sylvain said. "You're right. I'm not. I'm not anything, right."

"That's not what I said," Felix said—snapped. "Just—do what you want to do. That's all."

"Okay," Sylvain said. "Sure. If that's what you want. Sure." He turned on his heel and walked away, toward the brightly lit square.

Felix's hands were clenched in tight, useless fists. He breathed through his nose. He hadn't asked for this. He hadn't asked for any of this.

He went through his nightly routine, dogged, then blew out the lantern and shut his eyes. Counted his breaths, until he fell asleep.

Sometime later, the door opened. The floor creaked. Felix kept his eyes stubbornly shut. Eventually he drifted back to sleep.

* * *

Felix woke with his body screaming for action, eyes wide open in the dark.

"Felix?" Sylvain said, voice clogged with sleep. A minute later, alert: "Felix?"

There was a familiar feel to the skin of his face, the stretch of salt water drying. His throat felt raw.

He hadn't even realized they'd stopped. The dog used to wake Felix up when this happened, licking his face, whining. Felix pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

The bedframe creaked. "You okay?"

"Fine," Felix said, clipped. Stupid to be embarrassed, after all. Too late for it. Sylvain already knew. He'd seen Felix wake up countless times with a cry in his throat or tears on his cheeks. Felix took a deep breath. Another.

There was the sound of a body shifting, cloth against cloth. Sylvain said, "I used to have nightmares pretty regularly."

"I'm not a child," Felix said, cutting.

"I wasn't either. I was twenty-four."

That was when Sylvain had—changed. He thought. He was sure.

"My brother pushed me down a well when I was a kid," Sylvain said, like he was telling Felix what time the sun rose. "He did a lot of shit, but it was the well that got me. I hated the dark. For years I couldn't sleep without a candle, I—" He broke off. "Anyway. I used to dream about being back down there. Down in the dark. And I'd yell and yell and yell and not a goddamn person heard me."

Felix was still turning over My brother pushed me down a well. He was no stranger to the extremes of cruelty enacted each day. Somehow they hadn't seemed to touch Sylvain, though. Like he wore a shield around himself.

"The thing is," Sylvain said. A voice floating in the dark. "You know you asked me what I remember. Well, I remember it happening. But I don't feel anything. It's like something I watched happen to someone else. Haven't had a single dream since I came back." A light rap. "Knock on wood."

"And?" Felix said. Then he wanted to take it back; too sharp. But Sylvain didn't seem to notice.

"And I hated it. Every minute of it. But it made me who I am. Was. There's something wrong with wiping the slate clean like that." Sylvain laughed, without humor. "Not to make this all about me."

Felix's fingertips dug into the meat of his palm. He said, "In the dream I'm back at Gronder—at a battle. Watching it end."

That was as much as he could get out. It felt like it had been wrung out of him with smithing irons.

"A bad one," Sylvain said. Not a question.

He nodded shortly, then remembered Sylvain couldn't see him. "Yes."

"Yeah," Sylvain said. "You used to—I figured it was something like that."

Felix didn't want to know what he used to do. Still did. The dark lay over them like cloth. He only knew Sylvain was there from the sound of his breathing, low. Because it was dark, he could say, "Sorry. About earlier."

Sylvain didn't pretend not to know what he was talking about. "It's all right. I wasn't kidding when I said I need to get over it."

"No. I shouldn't have..." He struggled to get it out. "You're not—you're—you."

After a moment, Sylvain laughed again. This one was real. "You really have a way with words, huh."

"Shut up," Felix said, in relief.

The next morning he almost tripped over Sylvain, stretched out on the floorboards, head pillowed on his arms. His chest rose and fell, fast asleep. Felix didn't wake him up.

* * *

The Blue Sea Star had vanished from the skies when they reached the edge of the outlands. The transition was abrupt. They'd been trekking through another endless stretch of burnt-orange and dry shrubs since leaving the crossroads town. Then suddenly, in the space of a day, the orange faded to brown, tangled weeds sprouting fresh from the soil, and the cry of a gull broke the endless blue sky. They both looked up to watch it wheel overhead.

The track grew sandy and overgrown, the grasses around it reaching to his knees. Felix's heels sank into the ground as they slogged up a rise. They crested it, and—

That was what he'd been hearing. The distant boom of waves crashing into foam, far below. The sea was a dark blue-black, stretching to the horizon, unbroken by ship or island.

Sylvain had stopped short. He wasn't moving. Felix looked from the horizon to Sylvain and back again. "What? Do you see something?"

"No." Sylvain couldn't seem to tear his eyes away. "It's been a long time, that's all."

Gautier was coastal, just like Fraldarius. Felix had never felt any particular way about the ocean. It was just—there. Like the dark or the night or winter. Big and cold and wet. Sylvain was looking at it like he was thirsty enough to drink the whole thing up. 

"It wasn't that long," Felix said. He didn't know why it made him feel unbalanced. "We crossed the bay between Sreng and Almyra."

"It looks different up here," Sylvain said. He was still looking at the sea. "I don't know." Finally he tore his eyes away, turning to Felix. "So what are we waiting for? Let's go find a ship."

Easier said than done. They'd come out of the outlands high up the coastline—higher than Felix thought they would. Maybe he should have spent more time looking at that map after all. The road shrank to a narrow path, zig-zagging down the cliff. They scrambled down it. At least the weather was better here. The sun still blazed, but the air was cooler, and a salty breeze rose and fell, leaving Sylvain's hair tangled and windblown. You could see it in his face: he loved every minute of it.

It wasn't long before they hit a town—a fishing village, fleet bobbing on the chop. "Brigid?" the old man dozing by the harbor said, scratching at his beard. "Can't say we've ever seen a vessel bound that ways. "

"How far to the next port," Felix asked.

The man scratched his beard. "Down at Kyros you can get to Enbarr, maybe."

Felix said, "No."

Sylvain looked considering. "Enbarr, huh? Bet it would be easy enough to find a Brigid-bound—"

"No," Felix said, over him. He heard his own voice, harsh and flat. "We're not going to Enbarr."

The pause barely had time to stretch into awkwardness. "All right," Sylvain said. "We're not going to Enbarr. Sorry to bother. Fair seas." He nodded to the man. 

They walked in silence for a few minutes. Then Sylvain said, "So how long a walk do you think we're looking at."

"I'm not going to Adrestia," Felix said. "If you want to, you'll have to—" He didn't know what Sylvain would have to do.

"Hey. Hey. No," Sylvain said. "I don't. We'll work our way down the coast, yeah? Must be plenty of work around here. Pirates."

"Pirates," Felix said.

"Sure. Nice coastline like this, plenty of coves to hide out in." Sylvain's voice was easy. "We used to get raiders from Sreng coming ashore all the time."

After a little while, Felix said, "I'm not going to Fódlan."

"That's fine with me," said Sylvain. 

* * *

The towns got bigger, and closer together. The cliffs rose higher. Felix and Sylvain hunted predators, tracked bandits, healed injuries, hauled fish. They fought off would-be thieves and drunk troublemakers. Sylvain's pirates never materialized, but a sea serpent did, roaring out of the waters of the cove twenty feet over their heads. "Are you fucking _joking_ ," Felix heard Sylvain swear behind him, as the thing dove at them, double-rowed teeth flashing. 

They split, Sylvain left and Felix right. Felix eyed the creature. High speed, bad eyesight—it shot toward him in a slithering curve. He threw himself out of the way and it smacked the rock where he'd been standing a minute before. Slime spattered his face. It smelled disgusting. 

Sylvain was trying to take advantage of the blind spot. He managed to score a long opening down its side before the waters of the cove sucked it back down. "The eyes?" Sylvain said, as Felix dragged his sleeve across his face. Felix nodded. No time for further strategizing; it burst out of the water again, straight for Felix. 

The thing kept going for him. Something about the way he moved? He feinted forward and the serpent's head followed. "Sylvain," he called. "Get ready."

"Gotcha," Sylvain said. From the sound of his voice he'd backed up, out of the line of sight. The serpent's head bobbed, poised for him to move. Felix lunged right and the serpent followed, snapping at him. As its head came in close he threw himself flat on the ground and Sylvain hefted the spear and threw.

It lodged in the serpent's eye. The thing gave a shrieking hiss and reared back. Then—was that _another_ —no, that was its tail, its whole body thrashing, coming out of the water—

"Oh, shit," Sylvain said, as the whole serpent, all twenty plus feet of it, shot up in the air in a wriggling spiral.

It was going to come down on top of them. Felix's sword was out. As it tumbled from the sky, he took a running leap. The sword carved a single deadly slice. The body flew apart in two neat halves. A spray of bile arced high in the air.

Felix hit the ground, threw himself into a tuck and roll, and the fountain of foul liquid crashed down over Sylvain's head.

Dead silence. Felix got to his feet.

Sylvain's hair was plastered to his skull. His shirt was soaked to the waist. Bile dripped from his elbows to the rock. The look on his face made Felix fight back an uncontrollable laugh.

"You should work on your speed," he said. Sylvain said something that was grounds for excommunication.

The hike back to the cliffside town was a long one. The scent get worse as it ripened in the sun. Felix stayed several lengths away as Sylvain kept up a steady and profane mutter. They reached the town. A townswoman saw them coming and blanched, ducking into a nearby doorway. Another detoured out of their way, and another. A hooting youth yelled something obscene and incomprehensible.

"All right, that's it," Sylvain said. Felix turned, wondering if they were about to get themselves run out of town, but there was a hitching post in the street, with a horse pump next to it.

"Don't blame me if you come down with bronchitis," Felix said, and was ignored as Sylvain stripped off his filthy, bile-soaked shirt, yanked the handle, and stuck his head under the pump. 

He emerged gasping from the cold and shook out his hair, grinning. Water trickled from his hair down his neck, sluiced down his chest. The sun caught the slick wetness, freckles gleaming across his shoulders and the breadth of his back.

Felix might as well have been the one under the pump. It felt like it. The ice water punch, then, low in the pit of his stomach, the pull, the hot flare.

He'd thought that part of him was dead for good. He dragged his gaze away. His pulse hammered. His whole body said, _See? See? See?_

Sylvain was examining his ruined shirt. "No way am I putting this back on." 

"I hope you're not expecting to wear mine," Felix snapped, aware even as he said it that it was too jumpy, acerbic. It rolled right off Sylvain. 

"I wouldn't dream of taking the shirt off your back, Felix," he said, placing one hand over his heart—over his bare, wet chest— Felix realized he was scowling. 

With effort, Felix rolled his eyes and said, "We'll stop by the market. Try not to get jailed for indecency."

"Thanks, Felix," Sylvain said. He gave himself a once-over. "Think we can do something about my boots?"

They had a room in town—they almost always slept under a roof, these nights. Felix didn't know if it was better or worse. He lay awake, sticky in the evening heat. It flashed in front of his closed eyes like the afterimage of a lightning strike. He closed his fingers in the sheets and bit the inside of his mouth. Finally he got up. The floor creaked.

"F'lix?" Sylvain muttered. 

"Shh," Felix said, and Sylvain made an obedient noise and turned over.

Felix went downstairs and out to the bath house, where he pressed an arm against the wall and his forehead against his arm, wrapped a hand around himself, and came within a few strokes, Sylvain's slick brightness burning before his eyes. 

* * *

They made it a week later. Icelos, the port of Morfis, seemed to grow from the water's edge, like excess sea foam washed up on the shore and shaped into a city. Behind it rose a honeycomb of openings carved into the cliff face, older and eerier than the tumbled white and blue buildings.

"Cozy," Sylvain said, eyeing the caves. "If you like to sleep hanging from the ceiling."

Felix didn't like it. The prickle of magic was everywhere, like eyes on the back of his neck. His nerves itched. When Sylvain put an unthinking hand on his elbow, Felix nearly backhanded him across the street.

"Hey," Sylvain said in a low voice. "Easy. It's just me."

"I know," Felix said, clipped. He took a deep breath and let it out again. "Sorry."

"Don't worry. We'll be out of here soon." They'd been by the harbor earlier. No ships bound for Brigid in port, but one was sure to dock sooner or later, the harbormaster said, they did a decent trade now that the old Empire wasn't around to play middleman. He spat on the ground at that, then laughed.

"Not soon enough," Felix said.

A day passed. Another. Sylvain went by the docks in the morning. Felix paced the whitewashed floor of their rented room. Sylvain seemed to take up twice the space he had before. The itch without, Sylvain within. Felix was going to lose his mind.

"All right," Sylvain said, on the third day, "we're getting out of here. Come on."

Felix ground his teeth. He couldn't deny that he was dying to get free of the same four walls. On the other hand, he hated this place. Why was it taking so long. He just wanted to be—out, going, moving—

"Come on," Sylvain said again. "I've got your back."

Felix belted on his sword.

Sylvain stayed half a step behind him the whole way. The most infuriating part was that it worked. The tension coiled between his shoulder blades loosened, like the target was covered up, with Sylvain there.

There was a market not too far from the docks, stalls heaped with lemons and figs and some kind of green-meated nut. Sylvain bought a cone of them and shelled them with quick fingers. Felix, dubious, tried one; they weren't that bad. The sea breeze caught his face, his hair. It did feel—better.

Sylvain nudged him. "What'd I tell you."

"You didn't tell me anything," Felix said, which was the strict truth and also as good as conceding it. Sylvain grinned.

There was a dog barking down by the docks. It was a high-pitched little yip, nothing like— The yip became a squeal.

Felix was on his feet, leaving Sylvain behind. He couldn't see where it was coming from. He followed the sound—there, by the pier.

It was trapped, paws tangled in a fishing net. One of the weighted lines was cutting into its leg. The more it pulled, the tighter the line dug in.

Felix knelt beside it. It squealed again and tried to scrabble away from him. "Shh," Felix said, meaninglessly. "It's okay. I've got you. It's fine."

He reached for the line. The dog tried to snap at his fingers. He avoided the little teeth and got it still, hooking an arm over its back and an elbow under its belly. The net was too badly tangled to untwist. Felix kept the dog gently in place with one hand and with the other slid his knife free. Carefully he sliced through the lines one by one. The dog had stopped snapping. It was trembling. "There," he heard himself murmuring, "see. Easy. You're fine."

The last line split. "There," Felix said again, and sat back on his heels. He realized he was in shadow.

Sylvain was standing there watching him. His face was unreadable.

The dog—a ridiculous looking creature, small and ragged and fleabitten—looked up at him and whined. Then it burst into an ecstasy of yips and dashed past Felix as a salt-roughened voice said, "Begging your pardon, that's my dog."

The man was clearly a sea captain, from cap to beard. He walked with a heavy limp. The dog was jumping on its hind legs, pawing eagerly at his knee. The captain reached down and hefted him up, tucked him under his arm.

"Sorry for the bother," the captain said. "Thanks for your help."

Felix muttered, "It was nothing." He couldn't bring himself to look at Sylvain. "You should keep a closer eye on him."

"He's trouble, all right," the captain agreed. "Turned around and he'd run right off. I can't be keeping up with him so easy ashore." With his free hand he ruffled the dog's ears. "He's a silly little thing, but we're being together a long while now."

Something about him struck Felix as familiar. Something about the way he spoke. Felix said, "Where's your cargo headed?"

The captain said, "Making sail for Brigid. Why?"

* * *

It wasn't a big ship, and the seas were rough. Sylvain spent most of the voyage rain-soaked and pale, hanging over the ship's rail. 

"You were fine the last time," Felix said, maybe a bit accusing, remembering the journey from Sreng to the Throat.

"My center of gravity was about three feet closer to the ground last time," Sylvain managed to get out, before leaning over the side of the rail again. 

Grudgingly Felix brought him ginger chews from one of the sailors, a woman who clearly pitied the poor handsome landlubber, and once, hesitantly, put a hand against Sylvain's back and rubbed a slow circle. Sylvain's shoulders slumped underneath his touch, like candlewax softening in heat. 

"Thanks," he said miserably.

It was a full week before they reached Brigid. Tall rocks speared the water as they sailed through the fjords of the outer islands. The sky was grey, the land a dull brownish green. It was almost summer, Felix remembered. Not a patch on Faerghus, but a far cry from the sun over Morfis.

Sylvain didn't seem to mind. He set foot on the dock with an expression of fervent deliverance, inhaling deep. "Brigid," he said. "Great country."

Felix looked around the harbor. The docks were bustling despite the weather, fishing vessels and long haul ships to be loaded and unloaded. He felt something against his hair. He turned to see Sylvain's hand moving away.

"Rain," he said. "So. Here we are. What's the plan?"

There wasn't a plan, particularly. It was just a place to go. Felix shrugged. "Find work. Earn money."

"Practical as always," Sylvain said. "I like it." Felix gave him a look—the Look, Sylvain called it now.

They said goodbye to the captain and his dog and set out to look for an inn. The town wasn't like any Felix was used to. The buildings were low-slung and wideset, with columned porches running around all four walls. The signs were in liquid script—he thought it was writing, anyway—many with laborious translations in the Fódlan tongue freshly painted underneath. The inns all had colorful names: the Hind's Tail, the Crossed Knots, the Serpent and Wyvern. Funny. Felix thought there weren't any wyverns in Brigid.

The Gull's Rest had a room for them at the right price. They left their packs at the inn and went out to resupply. Sylvain was in high spirits, revived enough to offer commentary on whatever they passed. Felix should have been irritated; he found himself trying not to smile.

"We'll stay here a few days, then sail on to Dagda," he said as they made their way back to the inn, just to see the split-second of pure dismay before Sylvain's eyes narrowed and he said, "Go fuck yourself, Fraldarius." 

Felix smirked. "How about I throw you in the harbor and raft to Dagda on your dead body," Sylvain said. "You look like you'd float."

"Try it," Felix suggested, and—

"Felix Fraldarius?" said the innkeeper, sounding timid. He was holding a scroll. "Which of you sirs is Felix Fraldarius?"

It would probably never go away. That split-second buck of alarm, then the adrenaline, ready for a fight. The innkeeper cringed from whatever he saw in Felix's face. Sylvain's teasing smile had gone like it was never there. "Who's asking?" he asked, deceptively light.

"Er," the innkeeper said. "The Queen of Brigid."

* * *

In the year they'd fought together against the Empire and the shadows and Felix's own country, Felix and Petra had exchanged a handful of words, maybe. He'd respected her with the chilly objectivity of one professional for another; he assumed she felt the same, if she'd bothered to consider him at all. Petra had joined the future king's entourage well before Felix had ever seriously thought his life would end anywhere other than under his liege's banner, shortly after their ill-starred school year had begun. She was a believer.

If he'd stopped to think about it, he would have assumed she'd returned home to take up the throne, and his assumptions would have stopped there. It would never have crossed his mind to send word he was in Brigid. He wouldn't have thought she'd cared.

The palace—or whatever it was called—was perched on a rise, overlooking the slope down to the harbormouth. A thick greenbelt separated it from the town sprawl. It didn't look much like the castles and palaces Felix was used to: low and long, built of clean wood, curved designs twining in bright paint around the columns and bronze gleaming from the finish.

They were shown to—Felix supposed it was the throne room. It wasn't anything like the grandeur of Fhirdiad. But the person who greeted them there wasn't his schoolmate, and she wasn't his comrade in arms. She was a queen.

It was there in the rightness, the certainty of Petra's bearing, her poise crosslegged on the bronze throne. It tugged like a fish hook, lodged right between Felix's ribs.

"Felix," she said now, rising and coming toward him with a warm smile. "Comrade."

She reached out. Felix flinched. Surely she wasn't going to—She grasped his forearms just below the elbow, and it only took him a split second to mirror, a warrior's greeting. Her eyes glimmered, like she knew what he was thinking. She continued, "It has been a very long five years."

Five years. Felix counted backwards. The numb months after unification. Two years, or it must have been three, with the dog. It couldn't have been a year since Sylvain. Could it?

"Thanks for the message," he said. "It was a surprise."

"There are not so many visitors speaking the tongue of Fódlan," she said, answering the question he hadn't asked. "Not yet." 

She looked from Felix to Sylvain. Felix said, "This is Sylvain. We've been working together."

"Ah," Petra said graciously, as Sylvain bowed. "Any friend of Felix's is being welcomed." Then she frowned, and said something Felix didn't understand, with a questioning lilt.

Sylvain shook his head. "Sorry, I'm not great with languages."

That wasn't true. But Petra brightened. "Oh," she said, "then you are from Fódlan, too. That is being perfect. You will both travel with us, yes?"

"Travel," Felix repeated after her. "Where."

"To Garreg Mach," Petra said, _of course, where else_ , "for the Feast of Union."

* * *

Of course. It was the sixth moon—Garland Moon. He'd lost track of the months. Five years, Petra said. Five years ago they were camped outside the gates of Enbarr. Felix didn't remember much about it. Just the rain and the march and the misery. 

He should say something. He couldn't: he was one taut wire vibrating no. Petra was starting to frown. "The feast of what?" Sylvain said, covering for him.

She transferred her gaze to him. "You have not been in Fódlan for many years," she said, certain.

Felix heard Sylvain making smooth excuses with one ear. I was born in Fódlan, haven't been back for ages, Felix filled me in on the excitement. The rest of him was scrabbling for equilibrium. It was ridiculous to feel this—staggered. Five years. That was plenty of time. Only he didn't think there'd ever be enough time.

"Sounds like a great time," Sylvain was saying. "It's up to Felix, though. He's calling the shots."

Petra frowned. "But surely you will be going, Felix? Everyone will be coming. It will be another reunion." 

Like the first one had ended so well. There was gravel in his throat. "I wasn't planning on it. I forgot it was the anniversary."

She looked so disappointed. It didn't make sense. They barely knew each other. "I know many would be glad to see your face again."

What could he tell her. "Maybe," he said, mostly because he didn't want to do this now, here, in Petra's throne room, in front of Sylvain. "I'll think about it."

"Please know that I would be most glad for your company on the journey," Petra said, with every appearance of sincerity. "We will be flying next week. Be letting me know if your decision."

Felix nodded. He knew Sylvain was watching him. Petra said, "Now I am hearing you are a mercenary? You must have had many exciting travels since we were last meeting."

Of course they had to stay at the palace, Petra insisted. They were treated to Brigid's finest—half a dozen varieties of fish variously grilled or spiced or stuffed with berries, tangy sauces, flat savory herb cakes—and shown to rooms where their belongings waited, duly retrieved from the inn.

Separate rooms. A few minutes later, there was a knock on Felix's door.

"I'm not going," he said, as soon as Sylvain opened the door.

"Okay," Sylvain said. 

"Yeah," Felix said. He didn't get up. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders hunched, fingers clenched in the coverlet. He knew he was radiating everything he felt. He didn't care. Sylvain came over and sat down next to him. 

When the silence was almost too much to bear, clawing at his throat, Sylvain said, "You went to the Academy, huh?"

Felix nodded, once.

"So did I. A few years before, you know." Sylvain waved a hand.

Felix didn't know why that hadn't occurred to him earlier. It must have shown on his face. Sylvain smiled a little, and nudged him with his shoulder. "Guess it would have been way before you, huh."

"Guess so," Felix said. His voice was dry. 

"Not that my Academy career was exactly covered in glory. Spent most of my time chasing girls and getting in fights. But hey, what else is school for."

Plotting imperial coups. Felix said, "We never graduated."

Sylvain didn't say anything. Just waited. 

"It happened right before the end of the year. What I told you, about the Empire." His fingers hurt, where they gripped the bedframe. "It came under siege and then—that was when—" 

Then they'd gone their separate ways. Felix had gone back to Faerghus. Done his best to hold the line, still, deep down, hoping. Then the trial. Then it had been five years. He went back to the monastery. And then it was as good as over.

"We used it as a base during the war," he said. "I left as soon as—I haven't gone back."

"Yeah," Sylvain said. "Yeah. I see."

He didn't, though. Because Felix hadn't told him. 

Felix said, "It wasn't supposed to be me. It was supposed to be my brother. He died. Protecting the king. The prince. Maybe if he hadn't—maybe if it had been—"

He'd never said that to anyone before. Barely even let himself think it. _Maybe Glenn would have been able to save him._

"I tried. I tried to bring him back." Now that he'd started, he couldn't stop. "I tried for years. I couldn't do it. I wasn't—" Good enough. Strong enough. Faithful enough. "I couldn't. So I left."

"I think I knew. Even then. I think I knew what I was doing." The hulking creature in the rain-lashed darkness, slaughtering with savage indiscrimination. "When I saw him again, it—he was gone. He'd died already. Whatever was left—wasn't Dimitri." 

It should have sounded more discordant. The sound of it in his own voice: the name he hadn't spoken for five years. 

He scraped the truth out of the pit of his throat. "So instead of serving him I watched him die."

It was out. That was what had happened. Nothing less than truth. Felix couldn't let go of the tightness in his shoulders, hunched up around his ears. 

Sylvain's warm hand wrapped around his shoulder. 

He didn't move. Sylvain didn't force it, didn't try and tug him over. Just let his hand rest there, the line of his arm warm against Felix's back. He could feel it rise and fall with his own breathing. 

Slowly, inch by inch, his shoulders came down. Slowly, he leaned, just a little, into Sylvain. 

"That's it," Sylvain said. The breath brushed the tip of Felix's ear. The nape of Felix's neck prickled.

"I remember him, you know," Sylvain said, quiet. "Your brother. He was always hanging around the knights. Looking for someone twice his size to spar with. Or getting them to tell him stories."

Glenn would have been a boy to Sylvain. Felix didn't know why it had never occurred to him before.

"He—actually I think we went on maneuvers together once. When he was the King's squire. Had a wicked right thrust. I remember thinking he must be in the middle of a growth spurt, because we caught him scraping the cooking pot after every meal."

Felix bit his lip. He hadn't cried over Glenn in years. Since it happened. Somehow, hearing Sylvain's thoughtful matter-of-fact voice made his throat burn. It was just... Glenn. Nothing about what it meant how he lived or died. Just an ordinary memory.

He said, "It's been a while since I've." He had to stop, to swallow. "Thought about him."

"Yeah," said Sylvain. "I bet. We can talk about something else."

Felix shook his head. Sylvain's arm still rested on his shoulders. He didn't want to move. "It's fine."

Sylvain said, even quieter, "I told you about my brother."

Felix nodded. 

"I used to tell myself it would be better if I'd never been born. Easier for them, easier for me." The thought alone made something inside Felix rear up in angry protest. "I got through it, though. I survived. Guess he never really forgave me for that."

"Good riddance," Felix said, acidic.

Sylvain smiled a little. He said, "That's what Gautier is to me. The place where I survived. Good for me, I guess. But why would I choose to go back there. You know?"

Felix's voice was rusty. He cleared his throat. "You don't feel like you're..."

The smolder that drove him across the continent, across land and sea, from Faerghus to Sreng to Almyra to Morfis to Brigid. Moving, always moving, farther and further. 

"Running?" Sylvain finished.

Felix stiffened. "I'm not—" 

"Felix," Sylvain said. His arm tightened around Felix's shoulder. "That's what I'm saying."

But he was. He'd been running since the war ended. Since before. Since the day he'd turned his back on Fhirdiad.

He said, "We're not going with Petra."

Sylvain's thumb stroked his shoulder, slow and soothing. "Okay."

"We're going—just us. If we don't get there in time, fine."

"Sure," Sylvain said. His voice was soft. "Whatever you want."

He'd said it. He'd said they were going. He couldn't take it back.

After a minute Sylvain said, "Do we, uh. Do we have to time to unwind a little before sailing back?"

It rose unwillingly in his mind's eye, the image of Sylvain's miserable white face. We're flying next week, Petra had said. 

Felix said, "We can fly over. If they're willing to take us. No further."

Sylvain let out a little breath. There was a smile in his voice as he rested his chin on Felix's head. "Thanks, Felix."

"You better be grateful," Felix muttered at the floor. The back of his neck was hot.

Sylvain gave his shoulder one last squeeze and let it go. "I am," he said.

* * *

Petra had brought a flight of wyverns back to Brigid, to the delight of small children and the dismay of small animals. They mostly hung around the castle grounds divebombing rabbits and preening for curious onlookers, and appeared slightly offended to be coaxed down to the grounds with hunks of raw beef and then saddled up for travel. 

Petra was traveling to Garreg Mach accompanied by her personal guard, five men and women who were each at least a head taller than Felix. Felix mounted a rusty brown wyvern behind a woman with intricate greying braids and bronze bands around her upper arms. "Ready?" she asked over her shoulder, in his language.

Felix gave the carabiner an extra tug. "Yes." Across the grounds, Sylvain gave him a cheery salute from the back of his mount. With a flurry of heavy wingbeats they launched into the sky.

Felix had never loved flying, but it was nothing he hadn't done before. He thought. He'd never flown across the sea with a warrior of Brigid. His rider and Sylvain's were calling back and forth to each other—bantering, from the tone. The woman, whose name Felix must have been told, yelled something over her shoulder that Felix didn't understand. Without further warning the wyvern dropped into a screaming drive, leaving Felix's stomach behind. He let out an oath and clutched the woman's waist out of reflex. 

He could hear her laughing—not at him, in sheer joy. The wind rushed past his face. The dive bottomed out and they were skimming above the surface of the sea as porpoises leapt and splashed alongside. Felix was dizzy. Salt spray splashed his cheeks. His hair whipped in his eyes. His cheeks ached from the cold. No—he was smiling.

Petra put them down past the foot of the Fingers. "Holy Saints," Sylvain said, tumbling to the ground. His eyes shone. His hair was windblown, a wild red tangle. Felix wanted to comb it down with his fingers. "Holy _Saints._ "

Haven't you flown before, Felix wanted to say. He knew without trying that he wouldn't be able to deliver. Sylvain elbowed him, grinning. "You loved it." 

Felix made a dismissive noise. Sylvain draped an arm over his shoulders. "Your secret's safe with me," he said.

Before Petra and her guard lifted off again, Felix said, "Petra. Don't—tell them I'm coming." He dragged the next word out. "Please."

"Of course," Petra said. She smiled at him, and there it was again: the queen. "I will be seeing you at the monastery." They watched as the wyverns lifted into the sky and shrank in the distance, tiny dots looping away.

"Well," Sylvain said, when they were out of sight. "Let's get walking."

Unfair, how much faster the days rolled by when they were walking to the monastery than when they'd been trekking through the outlands. It was strange, hearing his own language everywhere. Picking phrases from the low buzz of conversation without trying, familiar names looming from shops and signposts.

The weather favored them, clear skies punctuated by rain showers. They passed through Arundel. Remire. At the crossroads, a signpost pointed to Magdred Way.

On the sixth day, mountains reared up on the horizon, green and free of snow. As the day wore on, Felix's neck got tenser and his jaw tighter. Sylvain didn't try and make him talk. He let him walk. Forward, single-minded.

They passed the last crossroads. Sylvain knocked an elbow against his. "Hey," he said. "Almost there."

They reached the town at the foot of the mountain. Passed on through. Inns could come later. If Felix stopped now, he might not start again. There was the grassy slope, the winding path leading up the heights. Felix didn't look up. He started to climb. 

Up, up, up. No conversation; it was steep enough to excuse it. The gates rose in front of them. They were wide open, proof of the feast. The guards didn't give them a second look. Felix passed under the archway. 

And then it was over and Felix was inside Garreg Mach.

It looked the same. It would always look the same. No, not quite. The rubble was gone. Gouges in the stonework had been filled. The courtyard held students in flapping uniforms, monks, scholars, choristers. No knights. The martial arm of the Church was gone for good.

"Huh," Sylvain said, breaking the silence to echo Felix's thoughts. "Looks pretty much the same." He gently bumped Felix's arm with his own. "Where to?"

Felix didn't know. It had taken every scrap of grit he had to get this far. Then, of course, he did.

"I should find my old professor," he said.

"The archbishop," Sylvain said. "Right?"

Felix nodded. "I don't know if they'll let me in."

"Well," Sylvain said. "Only one way to find out."

They set a course for the old offices, collecting sidelong glances as they went. They made it halfway.

He heard the voice before he saw her. The same voice he'd know anywhere, the voice he'd cleaved to on the battlefield, listened for in the dark.

"Felix?" Sylvain said, as Annette came out of the cloister.

She saw him right away. She'd been carrying an armful of books; they tumbled into the grass at her feet. Her eyes were huge and blue. Her mouth formed a small, perfect _o_.

"Annette," Felix said.

And she was flying toward him, tears streaming down her red face before she hit him like a tiny cannonball.

He caught her in his arms. " _Felix Hugo Fraldarius_ ," she sobbed angrily, beating his shoulder with one fist and clutching his shirt with the other, "you awful person, not a word for _five whole years_ , you, you—how _dare_ you, you're the worst person in the _world_ , I thought you were _dead_ —"

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly, and then said it again. 

"Good!" Annette hiccuped. "Good! You should be! You could have sent just, just one single _note!_ 'Hello Annette, I'm not _dead in a ditch!_ '"

"Hello, Annette," he said obediently. "I'm not dead in a ditch."

She gave an angry screech and punched him again, harder, and then just buried her face in his shoulder and cried. Felix, helpless, looked over the top of her head at Sylvain. Sylvain's eyebrows had climbed up his forehead; he looked like he couldn't decide whether to be delighted or alarmed. Felix was turning red, he knew. So what. He'd been through hell and back with Annette. So what.

Sylvain was looking them over now, assessing. Felix was braced for it—Sylvain wouldn't be the first to speculate—braced hard enough that he was taken completely off guard when instead of _Girlfriend?_ Sylvain mouthed, _Sister?_

Felix's mouth fell open. Like taking a punch. Sylvain smiled now, like he understood something. Felix dropped his eyes.

After a few minutes, the sobs quieted; the tiny body stopped shaking. Felix and Sylvain traded a look: _All right, maybe?_

A voice, muffled, said, "You'd better be _really_ sorry."

"I am," Felix said. "I'm sorry. I'm ready to... do... things...? To... make up for it?" He scowled at Sylvain, who was very obviously trying not to laugh.

Annette straightened up, wiping her eyes. "Good," she said. "I have a list. Starting _right now._ Introduce me to your friend."

"My," Felix started to say—who was she talking about—and then realized who she meant. Sylvain wasn't his _friend._

"Right," he said. "This is..." Annette had lived her whole life in Fhirdiad; she probably didn't remember much more about the missing Gautier heir than a distant story. Still. 

"My name's Sylvain," Sylvain said, and gave her his most charming smile. "And you are?"

She blushed a little, which was horrifying, and said, "Annette. Dominic. I'm a professor at the Academy."

"You're a _what_ ," Felix said.

She whirled on him again, thunderclouds everywhere. "Well, maybe you'd know, hm, if you'd taken five minutes to write to me!"

Felix was holding up his hands before she'd finished, saying, "It's my fault, I'm sorry."

She gave him a beady evil eye. "Don't you forget it."

To Sylvain she was all smiles. The stray beam of light Felix had clung to like a lifeline through the worst of the days after leaving the Kingdom, until even that wasn't enough. She told them a little more. She was a professor, teaching kids from every corner of Fódlan and beyond how to stopper a dam and quench a blaze and raise a foundation, and not how to burn people alive. "Are you here for the Feast?" she asked, at the end of the breathless recitation.

"Sure are," Sylvain said, when Felix didn't answer right away. "It'll be new to me. You'll have to fill me in."

"Oh, really? That's so exciting!" Her eyes were on Felix, though, anxious. "Claude, er, his Majesty's getting here tomorrow." 

"Does he make you call him that?" Felix said, lip curling.

"No! No. I'm just—practicing." She looked at her shoes and mumbled, "So I don't slip in front of my students."

Felix snorted. She glared at him, but it was mock-threatening this time. Suddenly she wrapped her hands around his arm and shook it. It reminded Felix, absurdly, of the dog worrying playfully at his sleeve. "Oh, Felix, I'm so glad you're here!"

He muttered, "You too."

The cathedral bells rang. Annette excused herself in a flurry—"Find me after class, we'll eat together, you're my guests!"—to return to her students. They watched as she scurried across the lawn, tripped on the hem of her robes, caught herself on the pillar, and disappeared into the classroom.

Sylvain said, "She's really got your number, huh."

"Shut up," said Felix. After a minute, he said, "She came from Fhirdiad. Before."

"You weren't alone," Sylvain said. Felix shook his head, throat tight. Sylvain said, softly, "I'm glad."

His cheeks burned. Sylvain didn't leave him stranded for long, though. "So I had a thought," he said, in a normal voice, as if nothing had happened. "I get the feeling that unless we want to do some fast talking, a personal meeting with the archbishop might not be the best way for me to keep a low profile. How about I wait somewhere you can find me later?"

It seemed unusually cautious. But there was no denying Felix's old professor had a tendency to ask odd questions. "I guess," he said. "If you don't mind." He gave Sylvain a second look. "Wait. Where?"

Sylvain smiled, showing teeth. "I'm overdue for a date with the library."

* * *

He found the archbishop who had been his professor down by the fishpond. He didn't know why he'd expected anything else.

She blinked up at him. "Oh. Felix. That's unexpected."

"Yes," he said. The day's catch was piled at her side, silvery-white. He felt a sense of kinship with them. "I came for the feast."

"I'm glad. It's been a long time." She was examining his face closely, like a puzzle. Then she said, "Have a seat."

He did.

"I wondered when you'd come back," she said after a few minutes, during which the line lay undisturbed in the lake. "You haven't been in Fódlan."

She probably had access to not one but two top-class intelligence networks. "I was around. Morfis. Almyra." 

"Really?" she said. "You should have told me. I was there for a visit."

Felix kept his eyes fixed on the pond. "How is he."

She turned her big unreadable eyes on him. "Who?"

Felix said, teeth hurting, "The king."

"Oh. You know." She smiled at her fishing rod. "Claude's Claude."

They watched the calm surface. The fish weren't biting any longer, it seemed. Out on the pond, someone was slumped in a rowboat, hat over their eyes. Felix watched a student go to and from the greenhouse, arms full of flowers. The sun descended through the sky, glittering pink and gold on the water.

Eventually Felix got to his feet. "I should go," he said.

"Sure," she said. And then, "I'm happy to see you again, Felix."

Felix said, "Same here," and meant it.

* * *

Sylvain had his boots propped up on an empty chair and an intimidating stack of books on either side of his table. Felix stopped next to his chair and waited for him to notice. It took a while. 

Felix stuck a boot out and prodded the leg of the chair. Sylvain looked up with a start. "Oh," he said, and looked around the library, and then back up at Felix. "Were you waiting? Sorry."

Felix jerked his chin at the stacks. "What are you reading."

Sylvain closed the book in his hand and deposited it atop the right hand pile. "A few different things. Lots to catch up on."

Felix wasn't the type of person who could identify obscure archival tomes by sight. But he could guess. He let it go.

They ate in the old dining hall, one on either side of Annette, ignoring the not-so-stealthy whispers and glances from her students. Annette preened a little; Felix had to look away, not to smile.

Annette offered to see if she could find them beds in the monastery. Felix thought he managed to sound polite in his refusal. Down in town, the inns were crammed to the gills with travelers for the feast. They should have expected it. On their fifth try, a pressed innkeeper offered them a tiny room under the attic eaves. It did not have two beds.

"No problem," Sylvain said. "I can take the floor." His grin said it clearly: _I'm used to it, remember?_

Felix crossed his arms over his chest. "We'll take turns."

"Sure. Toss me that blanket, will you?"

Sylvain settled into his makeshift pallet with every appearance of comfort. Felix stared up at the rafters. Tomorrow. It would all be over tomorrow. He drifted off to sleep, Sylvain's even breathing soft in the dark.

* * *

The crowd broke into a murmur as Felix and Sylvain trudged up the crowded road to the monastery, children pointing and babbling. Felix looked up in time to see the flight of wyverns soar overhead, descending on the monastery. The one in the lead was white.

He remembered Sylvain wouldn't know. "That's him," Felix said. "On the white one. The King of Almyra."

Sylvain squinted after the wyverns, shading his eyes against the sun. "Dramatic kinda guy, huh."

"You have no idea," Felix said.

They had to wait outside the gates, just for the crowd to get through. The main hall had been thrown open for the feast. Massive serving tables divided the room, laden with roast pheasants and currant-studded bread swans and a giant spun-sugar replica of the monastery itself. At the head of the room sat a raised pavilion, with two seats side by side.

They queued up to serve themselves. The feasting had already begun, benches and tables filling up. Felix was surprised how many faces sparked a faint jolt of recognition: former knights, mercenaries, aides from the Alliance armies, healers who'd patched them up over and over again. And not just the Alliance: he recognized others from old classrooms, from the wrong side of a crossed blade. They moved among the others without guilt or hesitation. Like they belonged there.

There was Petra and her guard detail, surrounded by admirers. Annette made a face at him from two tables away: _too late, no room_. Felix and Sylvain found seats near the end of one the benches.

They were next a group of one-time Imperial vassals, from the sound of it. None of them seemed to recognize Felix, which was fine with him. Sylvain struck up a conversation; Felix focused on eating. The food was good. He was surprised to feel a familiar pleasant spark at the taste— _this, this is good, I haven't had this in a long time._

Felix noticed the archbishop stand up before most of the others did. Her mouth moved; the noise failed to abate. She raised a hand. A clap of thunder sounded, followed by total and immediate silence. A second later, the hall rippled with laughter at the archbishop's guilty face. The King of Almyra was smiling into his hand.

It was time for toasts. The archbishop toasted, awkwardly, peace. She was followed by the new Count of Gloucester with a long-winded but heartfelt paean to cooperation and mutual understanding. The Almyran general to strong arms and clever minds. The toasts flew thick and fast. Prosperous trade. Healthy crops. Weapons that held an edge. Liquor that could knock Leonie Pinelli off her feet. Good old satisfying brawls, you know what I mean. Laughter rose over the chatter.

Claude stood up.

Beside him, Sylvain gave a start. When Felix glanced over, Sylvain was looking back at him, worry clear in his eyes. That was when Felix realized he was gripping Sylvain's hand hard enough his own fingers hurt.

Felix jerked his head forward. The hall had fallen silent. Claude raised his cup and said, in a quiet voice that somehow managed to reach every corner of the hall, "To absent friends."

The crowd echoed him, in low voices. Felix caught sight of Annette across the tables, wiping at her cheek. He curled his fingers around the stem of his goblet, white-knuckled, as Sylvain lifted his with his left hand.

Claude sat down. Slowly, the hum of conversation picked up. Felix took a deep breath and let it out again. Sylvain was chatting to the guest on his other side—some former knight from the old Varley lands—as if everything was perfectly ordinary. His broad palm, his capable fingers, curled firm around Felix's. 

Felix let go.

* * *

The platters had been picked clean. Down at one end of the hall, a trio of musicians struck up a tune. Tables scraped the floor as they were pushed aside for dancing. Sylvain tilted his head toward the space, eyes teasing. "Guess I don't have to ask, huh?"

Felix's face spoke for him. Then he said, to his own surprise, "We don't have to leave yet."

The crowd began to swirl through the open space, old friends meeting with cries of delight, former allies pounding each other on the back. Felix and Sylvain were separated almost immediately. Sylvain flashed him a questioning glance; when Felix shook his head, _it's fine_ , he shrugged and mouthed _Find you later_.

He found Annette instead. She pulled him over to meet one of her professors, an Alliance strategist Felix vaguely remembered. Somehow he ended up standing with Annette and Hilda Goneril and Ignatz Victor, who wanted to hear more about his travels than he wanted to say. Shamir Nevrand was there; they met each others' eyes and jumped for the lifeline. Fifteen minutes passed in mutually satisfactory reticence, before Shamir vanished between one moment and the next and Felix turned around and saw Gloucester—Lorenz descending on him in a cloud of perfumed enthusiasm. He listened with one ear, not really even pretending, as Lorenz pontificated about crop recovery in what used to be Faerghus.

And throughout, one eye on the crowd, searching, out of habit, for the flash of red. There it was, its owner smiling down at a young student. Bowing over the archbishop's hand. Talking to—was that Marianne von Edmund? Then it disappeared. Felix stopped even pretending and craned his neck. There, by the pavilion. Sylvain smiling one of his genuine smiles, looking intrigued, talking to—

The last few words of Lorenz's sentence trailed after Felix as he cut a wake through the crowd. He got there just in time to catch the end of Claude's sentence: "—all kinds of people. No obligations. Just throwing it out there."

"Thanks," Sylvain said, sounding amused but also—gratified? Was that what that was? "I can't say I've been looking, but I appreciate it."

"Sylvain," Felix said.

Sylvain turned. "Oh, hey," he said. "Felix."

That was a different smile, crinkling around his eyes. There you are. Felix came right up, until his shoulder edged in front of Sylvain's. He couldn't help it.

"Hey, Felix," Claude said. "It's been a while."

It wasn't Claude's fault, exactly. He'd been right. He'd been right all along. It was just that because he'd been right, now Felix had to live with himself. 

"Hello," Felix said.

"You've got an interesting friend here," Claude said. "Sylvain was telling me about some of your wild adventures."

Felix looked up at Sylvain. Sylvain tilted his head and gave him a little shrug. Nothing much, just the fun stuff.

Claude was watching them, with those too-sharp eyes. "Huh," he said to Sylvain. "I think I see what you were saying. But the offer's still open any time."

Sylvain just smiled. Claude said to Felix, "It's good to know you're out there."

Felix looked him over. Edges seasoned over the last five years, but the same clever eyes, ironic mouth. The vision to see what could be and the dedication to make it reality.

He said, "It's good you're not dead."

Claude didn't laugh. He took it exactly as it was meant. "I'll try to keep it that way," he said. He raised a hand, acknowledging them both, and drifted away.

Felix turned to Sylvain. "What was he talking about?"

"Job offer." Sylvain looked thoughtful. "He do that a lot?"

He'd known—had a feeling—the moment he'd seen them facing each other. And yet it still felt like a splash of cold water to the face.

Instead of answering, he said, "I'm done here."

"Okay," Sylvain said easily. "Let's head back."

The crowds had spilled out of the hall and across the lawns, singing and chattering and lying on the grass. Felix thought he heard Leonie Pinelli and Caspar von Bergliez bellowing a filthy drinking song. He and Sylvain slipped out the gates and meandered down the slope, familiar summer constellations bright overhead.

People liked Sylvain. He was fundamentally likeable. He was clever. Sylvain and his books, Sylvain and his questions. It shouldn't be surprising if he were hungry for more. That was the kind of person he was. And there was more to know than Felix could—would—say, even now. 

What had he been expecting, anyway. That Sylvain would follow him around for the rest of his life? He let Felix call the shots. He'd probably keep on letting him, because Felix had just—happened to be in the right time, at the right place. What had Sylvain said, that night. I've got nothing, except. He hadn't belonged anywhere. Felix had, once, and he still remembered what it felt like. How stupid of him, to think that just because Sylvain hadn't known it, he wouldn't want it.

Sylvain was talking about the archbishop. Felix let him. They reached their second-rate inn, lantern dark. The attic room was hot. Felix moved to open the windows, movements stiff. He was aware of Sylvain standing in the doorway, watching.

"You okay, Felix?" Sylvain asked softly, after a minute.

"If you want," Felix said. He stopped there.

"If I wanted?" Sylvain prompted, after a minute in which Felix neither spoke nor moved. He sounded curious. Felix couldn't bring himself to look at his face.

He bit down on the inside of his mouth and off the sharp sting said, "If you want to take Claude up on it you can."

Sylvain didn't say anything. Felix pushed on, through the pulsing throb, like a broken tooth. "Claude looks after people. His people. If you want a place to stick around, you could do worse."

He probably sounded—just like he felt. Not to a stranger, someone who'd just hear the severity in his voice. But to someone who knew him.

"That's all," he said. He sat down on the edge of the bed and opened his pack so he didn't have to look up.

There was a long stretch of silence as he rummaged, pointlessly.

"Felix," Sylvain said, sounding—sounding far too soft. It was dangerous to talk like that. Felix couldn't help it: he flinched.

"Felix," Sylvain said again, stronger. "No."

Felix looked up.

Sylvain held his gaze as he crossed the room and then—knelt in front of him. Felix was looking down, now, into those melting brown eyes. Sylvain rested his hands on Felix's thighs, spread his palms flat, as if he could hold Felix there. "No," he said again, softer.

"No what," Felix managed. It came out in a croak.

"Felix." Sylvain couldn't seem to stop saying his name. He took a breath. His head was tilted back, his face—Felix couldn't look away. "You asked me to stay."

Heat burst across Felix's ears and neck and cheeks. They'd never talked about it. Never. The things he'd said when he'd been cracked open.

Sylvain said, "I don't want to go anywhere. I want to be here." He repeated, again in that awful soft voice, the one that seemed to reach into Felix's insides and tear them right out, "I want to stay."

Felix had tilted forward, drawn by the magnetic pull. They were close now. Close enough he could feel the brush of Sylvain's exhale against his cheek. Too close. 

"Felix," Sylvain said, a breath. 

Felix lifted his hands. Gently, he cupped Sylvain's sunburnt, freckled face—open as the sea. Sylvain's eyes were clear and wide. His lips were parted. 

Felix brought their mouths together.

He could count on one hand the number of times he'd been this close to another person. Even before. When Sylvain inhaled, he could feel the shudder ripple through his body, all six feet of it at his feet, caught between his hands. The heady rush was like—like holding a rare sword. Something powerful and perfectly made, ready to go exactly where he wanted, exactly how he wanted.

Sylvain's mouth was careful, questing. Searching out Felix, following where he led. Felix frowned into the kiss and pushed forward, tongue and teeth. Sylvain took it, caught Felix's lip between his teeth. A spark licked up his spine. The muscles of his thighs trembled, jumped, under Sylvain's hands. He felt—he was—harder than he could ever remember being. He panted into Sylvain's mouth. He didn't know if he wanted Sylvain on top of him or under him. Just that he wanted him.

Felix let go and slid his arms around Sylvain's neck, one hand sliding across his shoulder blades, one in his thick disheveled hair. He wanted to—press himself into Sylvain, dissolve into him. He was going up in flames. Sylvain broke away. "Felix," he whispered against Felix's mouth, "you sure—I—you know—"

Felix dug his fingers into the mess of Sylvain's hair, making Sylvain groan, and cut him off with a kiss.

"Yes," he said. Yes. I'm sure. I know. You're you. You're mine.

Sylvain was kissing his jaw, his chin. Felix made an impatient noise and tugged his mouth back into place. "Can't blame a guy for trying," Sylvain said, breathless, a smile in his voice. He bit gently at Felix's lip. Kissed him again. Softer, tender. They kissed for a long time, slow and searching, then impatient, thirsting, then slow again, a familiar rhythm. Sylvain's hands moved restlessly, like he couldn't decide where he wanted to put them most. Felix didn't have that problem; he knew exactly where he wanted his, under Sylvain's shirt, flat against his back, spread across all that freckled skin. When he slid both palms down Sylvain's spine, pushing forward with his mouth, Sylvain groaned and dropped his forehead to Felix's shoulder.

"Get up here," Felix said—rasped—finally. He pulled at Sylvain's shoulders. Sylvain went. Obedient. It was a narrow bed; he half-fell, braced above Felix on his knees. Felix hooked his arms around Sylvain's shoulders, up and over. He kissed Sylvain's cheekbones, under his eyes. Sylvain's nose brushed his cheek. He could feel the shape of the smile on his mouth.

Sylvain had lost his shirt. Felix's was half off, Sylvain's hands under it, the lacings of his breeches half-undone. He should say something. He said, halting, "It's been. A while."

Sylvain laughed against his cheek. "I mean, tell me about it." His palms slid slowly down Felix's sides, skin to skin, down to his hips. The lick of fire, from such a light touch, made Felix think he was going to come apart. "Pretty sure I remember the mechanics, though."

"Good," Felix said. "I'd hate to—hate—" He lost it. Sylvain was distracting him, teeth scraping his jaw, mouth moving down his throat.

"To?" Sylvain prompted, a minute later.

Felix didn't remember. He bit Sylvain's shoulder instead. Sylvain's curse was swallowed in his own laugh. Sylvain was always laughing. He tugged at Sylvain's hair, to remind him not to forget what he was here for. Sylvain laughed yet again. "What's the hurry?" Sylvain teased, as his knuckles stroked over the soft skin below Felix's stomach. "Let's just—go easy—"

Felix shoved him away. Sylvain fell back, eyes going wide. "Felix?" he said, apprehension in his voice, but Felix was already climbing forward, straddling his thighs, gripping the back of his neck. "If you're going to fucking joke—" 

"Got it," Sylvain gasped. "Saints, Felix—you're—you're—" 

"Then do something about it."

Sylvain did.

When his warm rough hand closed around Felix, Felix felt the charge through his spine to the base of his skull. "Let me," Sylvain kept saying. "Let me. I want to." Felix was the one to drop his head now, resting his forehead against Sylvain's sweat-slick shoulder, panting. Sylvain's arm locked around the base of his spine kept him upright. "I've got you," Sylvain was saying in his ear. "Let me. Felix—"

An oath slipped from his mouth. Sylvain was murmuring into his throat, things that Felix could barely bring himself to hear. It didn't matter. This was the place. The only place he wanted to be. Here, with Sylvain.

He came with Sylvain's face pressed against his neck and Sylvain's hand locked in his own and Sylvain's musky scent all around him.

* * *

"So," Sylvain said, into the damp hair at Felix's temple, as they lay lethargic and sticky and entwined. "Where to next?"

Felix knew what the answer was before the thought fully formed. He'd known what it was since he'd chosen to get on that wyvern and come back to the monastery. He didn't know if he could say it, though. He turned his face away, hot. He said, "I want to—"

He couldn't manage to finish. It didn't matter. Sylvain understood what he meant. Like always.

Sylvain folded a hand around Felix's own. The warmth enveloped him. "Yeah?" he said, softly. "We can do that."

* * *

Fhirdiad was cold, even this time of year. The snows had vanished from all but the northernmost peaks, leaving the land yawning to life beneath the midnight sun. But the chill was there in the breeze: winter never really left.

The trip had been a slow one. They'd said goodbye to Annette a full moon ago—more tears, and a promise to write this time. Felix intended to keep it, and if he got waylaid Sylvain would hold him to it. He would be back, anyway. Some day, he would be back.

Then they'd taken their time walking north. It reminded Felix of the last time he'd made this journey. He hadn't told Sylvain. Maybe when they reached the border, if they went that far. He was thinking about getting them a pair of horses.

They'd passed the crossroads to Galatea without taking the turn. That was still too much. Maybe someday, when the memory of Ingrid wasn't a memory of what he might have been. What he'd once asked himself, torturously, if he should have been.

They hadn't decided yet whether to go all the way to Gautier. Sylvain was talking around it, rather than about it; that was a sign, Felix knew now, that ice lay beneath the surface. There was time to decide. They were going to Fraldarius, so Felix could greet his uncle the Duke, for the first and maybe the last time. But first, this.

The old palace was gone. It had been half-destroyed in the battle to take the city, and the ruins further ransacked by looting. But the royal crypt had been preserved, by those who remembered and honored better days. 

Felix still knew the way. Behind the west wing and across the old rose gardens—some opportunist was growing vegetables now—to the steps beside the chapel, or where the chapel used to be, down, down, down underground, to an ancient stone archway over an iron door.

Sylvain was at his side the whole way. Felix realized, as he stood in front of the doorway, that it was because he'd been gripping Sylvain's hand.

Sylvain squeezed his hand and let go. "I'll give you a moment, yeah?"

Felix reached up and caught the back of Sylvain's neck with one hand. He tugged him forward, rising on the balls of his feet, and caught Sylvain's lips in a kiss. Slow, thorough, taking his time. After the first kiss, Sylvain started to pull back, but Felix didn't let him. He wasn't done. 

He did let go, eventually. This time Sylvain didn't move away; he let his forehead rest against Felix's, his hand curved around Felix's hip, their breath mingled. 

"I'll be back soon," Felix said, just above a whisper.

Sylvain smiled at him. A look unfathomably tender. He said, "I'll be right here."

Felix let go of Sylvain, took a deep breath of fresh air, and opened the door.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness. He didn't need to see, though. He'd been down this path a dozen times: countless childhood dares, then later the memorials, the annual remembrance. His footsteps echoed down the long stone corridor, flagstones older than memory of memory. The Road of Reunion, it was called, carrying the dead to their ancestors.

A torch, smoky and pungent, lit the entrance to the tomb. It unfolded ahead of Felix, room after room. Generations sleeping under the footsteps of Fhirdiad. You could track the progression of the centuries: crude carved slabs, then stone coffins, then stelae, urns at their feet.

The newest one was smooth and glossy, black as obsidian. Maybe it came from Ailell. At its foot lay a garland of blue forget-me-nots. They looked fresh.

Felix knelt in front of the stele. Claude had ordered it carved, after the peace was concluded. It was just that, just a marker; they never had found the body. Felix thought it was as good as anything, though. He didn't believe in souls. But Dimitri had cared about tradition. About his heritage. If his spirit were anywhere, it would be here, among his family, in the heart of his ancestral kingdom.

 _Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd_ , the stele read. _Last King of Faerghus_.

"Hello," Felix said, to Dimitri's memory. "I've come back."

**Author's Note:**

> on twitter at [@matchedpoint](http://twitter.com/matchedpoint). many many thanks for reading.


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